


Tastes Entangled

by LamiaCalls



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Reminiscing, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:07:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24698803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LamiaCalls/pseuds/LamiaCalls
Summary: Laura is in Galactica's sickbay after collapsing due to her cancer drugs. Lee tries to comfort her - or, at least, tries to stop her from thinking about work.
Relationships: Lee "Apollo" Adama/Laura Roslin
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8
Collections: Eat Drink and Make Merry 2020





	Tastes Entangled

**Author's Note:**

  * For [subjunctive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/subjunctive/gifts).



Doc Cottle hadn’t been keen on Lee staying.

“She needs her rest,” he’d said. But when Lee insisted, he’d sighed. “No excitement, no loud noises. And for god’s sake, don’t talk politics.”

Laura had, of course, wanted to do nothing but talk politics. Lee had dissuaded her long enough that she eventually fell into an uneasy sleep. She didn’t look peaceful: her mouth slightly open, a frown on her face, eyes twitching beneath their lids. He wondered what she dreamed of. He couldn’t protect her from her cancer, nor really from all the shit that the was being wrought across the fleet. Now he couldn’t do anything about her dreams, either.

It was so much easier with his pilots. Tell them what to do, keep them safe, celebrate when they all made it home alive. Mourn when they didn’t.

But this was not as easy, there weren’t these clean, simple lines.

Luckily, Lee had always liked complicated.

The machines around them beeped out a message that he couldn’t decode. He hoped it spoke of wellness. It still pained him to think of Laura, one moment up and looking like she normally did: harried but somehow cheerful. Then the next moment, collapsing over her desk, face slack. It had given Lee the fright of his life.

Cottle had said it was just a side-effect of the drugs. A little bit of intravenous to hydrate her and she’d be back on her feet in no time.

None of them spoke about how long she would be back on her feet for until the next sickbay, of course. Why would they do that?

Nobody else took up the bay. That was a small miracle, with how few viper pilots there were and how many had been getting injured lately. Lee was thankful for the peace and quiet. He knew what the pilots — and his father — thought of him spending so much time with the President. He didn’t care but he was grateful not to have to put up with the funny looks. Or the teasing from Starbuck. His feelings still stung after she’d called him a grave robber. He wouldn’t be forgetting that in a hurry. She might have laughed that Starbuck laugh and rolled her eyes at Lee’s obvious hurt, but it didn’t salve his ego.

“Lee,” came Laura’s rasping voice.

He looked up. Her eyes were still mostly closed. “Water, please.”

Lee jumped up, grabbing the jug from the side table and poured her a glass. He hesitated then, for just a moment, before continuing. When he tried to place it in her hands, he realised they were shaking badly. Instead, he a swept a hand behind her head, leant her head up and placed the cup to her lips. She drank slowly, tentatively, mouth barely open a crack.

After drinking half the cup, she leaned back and he released her gently back onto the pillow. Her eyes flicked open, and her mouth quirked into a smirk.

“Cottle said I wasn’t allowed food or drink,” she said softly. How could she sound so tired, and yet look so mischievous?

“Yeah well,” Lee said, shrugging. “I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”

“My lips are sealed.”

He put the cup behind the screen, so Cottle wouldn’t see it when he went by, and retook his seat. He watched her carefully. Her eyes moved lazily, slowly, like a fly in honey. She looked around the room, before her eyes settled back on Lee.

“I’m going to be okay,” she said gently.

He tried not to smile, but he failed miserably.

“You’re not meant to be comforting me, I don’t think,” he said. He reached out, slid a hand between the bars of her bed, and took her hand. It was smooth and cool.

“Then don’t look at me like that,” she said simply.

He stroked her hand with his thumb. He went slowly, gently. He didn’t want to give away quite how much he was worried by holding too tight or moving too quickly.

“Has there been any news about the shortage on _Faru Sadin_?” she said.

Lee chuckled.

“Amazing. You can barely lift your head, and you want to work?”

“What else is there to do?” she said.

“We could talk about something else,” he said gently.

“What else is there to talk about?” she said. “Hand me my glasses.”

He looked at her skeptically.

“Do you ever think about home?”

“Constantly. My glasses, please, Lee.”

He laughed. He pulled her hand towards him, kissed it. Just a second, not long enough to be caught if Cottle went past.

She sighed.

“I miss my own bed, more than anything,” she said. He tried not to show how much it pleased him when she gave in to his suggestions. “Especially my pillows. There are no good pillows on the fleet. They’re all thin and lumpy.”

“That’s true.”

“And the smell of clean sheets! Now everything smells like recycled air and chlorine.” She paused, though whether to gather breath or because she was caught in the memory, Lee wasn’t sure. “Will you get me something to eat, at least? I hate these tubes.”

“Cottle said it might make you sick,” Lee said. He squeezed her hand. “Sorry.”

She waved him off with her free hand, limp though it was.

“I never thought I’d be craving that horrible peach cobbler.”

“Wow, you must be really sick,” he said. “Let me take your temperature, check you’re not delusional with fever.”

Though she tried to rebuke him, he jumped up quickly and gave her a peck on the forehead. She was warm. He would have liked to kiss her properly then, but it was a risk not worth running and while Laura, he had found, was not afraid of a little risk. She was careful, yes, but not cautious. He was more reserved than she.

“Hmm, you feel fine, so it must just be madness then,” he said matter-of-factly, sitting back down. He took her hand again.

“Probably. You know, I’ve forgotten what peaches taste like. What they really taste like, I mean, without being freeze dried and reconstituted and artificially flavoured,” she said. Her smile turned into something wistful. “When I was girl, my grandfather grew peach trees in his garden. He had two of them, and they were so close together that their branches used to grow into each other, tangle up together. He said, he couldn’t cut one down or the other one would come down with them, too. But it meant he had so many peaches that we would end up drinking and eating little else over the summer. He’d make pies and cobblers, peach juice and ice cream. And when I would play out there and get hungry, I would just climb up one of those trees and eat a peach right off the branch. It was glorious.”

Lee smiled. He liked to imagine Laura, hair wild, climbing trees and scraping her knees against the bark. He wondered if he would ever know her against green, or if they were destined to only see each other against the grey cold walls of ships.

“What happened to them?” he said. “Are they still there?”

She exhaled, her mouth twisting.

“No. When he died, my father moved us into the house. With that many peaches, they’d fall to the crowd and attract ants. So he tried to cut one of them down. My grandfather had been right — he was always right — and the other didn’t survive it.”

Lee squeezed her hand tighter. Her eyes were misted.

“And you?”

“No peach trees in my past, no,” Lee said. He smiled. “No, Commander Adama was very much concerned with orchids and bonsai trees. Things that needed careful tending so he could ignore what was going on with the rest of the family.”

Laura laughed.

“That’s a little unfair, don’t you think?”

He pursed his lips. She was right, of course. She very often was. He was trying to move past his childhood, to shore up the hurts of over a decade. Sometimes, though, the bandage slipped.

“Maybe. But even so, I don’t think any of the places we lived had fruit trees or even a herb garden. I wish they did.” He flexed his free hand, looked at the bruises along the knuckles. He couldn’t even remember where he’d gotten them from. “We should visit _Cloud 9_ when you’re out of here. See if they have any fresh fruit.”

“Oh, I already tried that,” she said, her voice low. “Although I think you’d be a lot more charming to the young lady who’s in charge of the garden. Maybe you’ll be able to find what I cannot.”

They sat in silence for a time, listening to the beeping of her machine. Lee could hear Cottle’s footsteps somewhere outside of the curtains, and the gentle sound of folders being opened and pages being leafed through. The whole place smelled vaguely of disinfectant but he could hardly complained. They were alone, and he was grateful for that. He knew there would be journalists on the other side of the door, ready to pounce as soon as he left. He believed in free press, strongly and vehemently, but he also believed that what his President desperately needed was rest and not to be badgered when she was obviously sick. Humanity. That’s all he wanted from people.

Her hand was cool and dry in his. He rubbed a thumb across her knuckles.

“When we get to Earth,” Lee said quietly. “I’m going to find you a peach tree.”

“I would like that very much,” she said. But there was doubt in her voice.

“I mean it, Madame President.”

Her eyebrow quirked, the way it always did when he addressed her by title rather than name.

“I think I’m a little old for tree climbing now,” she said.

“Then I’ll climb it for you, and throw fruit down for you to catch. We’ll eat them until we’re sick.”

She struggled to hold back her smile. She squeezed his hand.

“Fine,” she said. “I think I can live with that.”

He smiled, squeezed her hand back.

“Now,” she said. “Will you please go check on the _Faru Sadin_ , Lee? I’m not going to be able to relax until I know what’s happening.”

He hesitated. He wanted to refuse her, but he knew she also spoke the truth: the President was not the type of woman to worry about herself when a crisis was afoot. He sighed, and got up from his seat. He planted a kiss on her forehead, firm and lingering, before he straightened up.

“Get some rest, I’ll be back with some news,” he said. “And if I find you awake when I get back, you won’t be getting any report.”

“Refusing direct orders from your President?” Laura said, quirking an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound much like you.”

“When the President insists on being so stubborn, what am I meant to do?” he said. He sighed. “Rest, please. I’ll be back soon.”

She nodded, though she didn’t look much happy about it.

“Thank you, Lee.”

“Anytime, Madame President.” He paused on his way out of the curtains, and turned back to her. “I’ll see if I can’t find you some peach cobbler on my way back.”

She grinned so wide that his heart unclenched just a little bit. She was going to be okay, he felt sure of that, to see her now, sitting up in bed and watching him with sparkling eyes. He nodded, and left.

He had meant what he said. He would find her her peach tree.


End file.
